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I sometimes wonder how Craig would keep a (luxurious) roof over his head if it wasn’t for the excellent SPG Best Rate Guarantee – he really does love it! It was therefore with considerable trepidation that I clicked on LoyaltyLobby’s latest post, highlighting some new changes to the SPG BRG.
Fortunately, I’m relieved to be able to report that far from being horribly negative, the changes are positive overall. Before I get onto the changes though, it’s worth a very quick refresher on what the SPG Best Rate Guarantee actually is.
Essentially, if you book a stay direct through SPG and then see a better rate elsewhere for the exact same room and dates etc, SPG promises not only to match the lower rate, but to also offer you a choice of either an additional discount or 2,000 bonus Starpoints. For the full details, I highly recommend reading our guide here.
The changes:
- The additional discount is now 25%, rather than the previous 20%. Offering a 25% discount brings the SPG BRG into line with what new owners, Marriott, already offers through its ‘Look No Further’ guarantee for stays with Marriott brands. You can can still continue to select 2,000 bonus Starpoints per stay instead if you prefer.
- The minimum price difference is now 1 USD instead of 1%. For stays costing more than $100 this is a positive change, though it might make it slightly harder to find eligible comparison rates for cheaper stays.
- Rates booked on or compared to the following SPG in-language booking sites: Arabic, Indonesian, Thai and Turkish are no longer eligible for BRG claims. I’m not really sure what the thinking behind this is to be honest, but imagine it will be of little relevance to most InsideFlyer UK readers.
You can have a read of the new terms in full on the SPG site here.
Bottom line
Craig may have a slightly tougher time from now on when it comes to deciding whether to pick the higher 25% discount or the 2,000 Starpoints, but apart from that there’s little to worry about in these changes.
Looks good, do you know if rate refers to nightly, or stay rate as that could be important for that minimum some regions.
“Competing Rate” looks like the nightly rate to me.
As much as I love doing BRG claims, when the rates are that close, it most likely is due to strange foreign exchange calculations, rather than being a genuinely lower rate. But sometimes you can get lucky.